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Have you come across the Vocative case yet? If I remember rightly it's only different from the nominative (subjct) in 2nd Declension masculine nouns.<br /><br />The vocative is the case you use to talk to someone. So if you are calling your slave, for example, you would say "serve" (vocative) and not "servus" (nominative).<br /><br /><br />To make the vocative just put 'e' instead of the 'us' ending. Marce is the vocative of Marcus. I'll leave you to put Marcus into the genitive

Hmmm...<br /><br />Uhh... vocative. I was going to say nope, don't know anything about it, but looking back, I see it was touched on very briefly. Which is why I didn't remember it!<br /><br />NOM = Marcus<br />VOC = Marce<br />GEN = Marci<br /><br />So the answer should be Ancilla curat equum Marci ?<br /><br />That really threw me off! <br /><br />So the 'Galba' I read in the dialogue is really the Vocative of the name 'Galba' ... and it looks the same because -a nouns have the same -a ending for NOM & VOC ?<br /><br /> <br />

Bingley is right. There isn't really such thing as "E" ending nouns. That's a vocative case of masculine second declension. If you meant to use the genitive it would be "Marci", or if you want to address him directly (O Marcus!) you would change his name to "Marce".

[quote author=benissimus link=board=3;threadid=261;start=0#1472 date=1058424577]<br />Bingley is right. There isn't really such thing as "E" ending nouns. <br /><br /><br />There are a few neuter nouns of the third declension ending in -e; e.g. mare 'sea'. Famous for being i-stems. But don't worry about them yet, Marieke, you're going fast enough as it is. <br /><br />Ingrid[/quote]

[quote author=ingrid70 link=board=3;threadid=261;start=0#1481 date=1058450029]<br />But don't worry about them yet, Marieke, you're going fast enough as it is. [/quote]<br /><br />Latin consumes me. I feel like I'm not assimilating new concepts as fast as I would like. I often feel like I have to take two steps back to go over something I just learned not too long ago. I feel like I don't have enough time to study. I try to do a little in the evening. I try to do it while I'm on the bus. And I also do it surreptitiously while I'm at work. Shh, don't tell my boss! Language is a virus. There is even a WS Burrougs poem (I believe) that's called "Language is a Virus". There was a song by Laurie Anderson called "Language is a Virus". And I have read a few geeky webpages on the subject. I digress. What was I saying? Oh, yes... Latin consumes me. And that's not a bad thing at all. ;D<br />

ancilla marci equum legati curat = the maid of marcus cares for the lieutenant's horse.<br />equum legati ancilla marci curat = it is the horse of the lieutenant that marcus' maid cares for<br /><br />It's interesting how you read/translate these two sentences differently. I would read them both as "the maid of marcus cares for the lieutenant's horse". I need to stop assuming that the subject of the sentence should go at the beginning.<br />

yeah, it's one of those things that has to be done! I have no respect for english!<br /><br />so the more correct answer to "Cuius equum ancilla curat?"<br /><br />would be 'equum legati ancilla curat' <br />it's asking you whose horse is being cured so the most emphasis must be put onto the horse/owner.<br />-the clue is a lot of the time in the question. <br /><br />the emphasis on words in latin is nice instead of vocal emphasis the word order can change!<br /><br />If B.L.D were to ask "Curatne ancilla equum legati"? <br /><br />you could just reply "Curat." (yes) or "Curat ancilla equum legati" <br />being "The maid DOES cure the lieutenant's horse" <br /><br />I put ancilla in the middle because of my instinct, episcopo " curat equum legati ancilla" pulcher non est ;D<br /><br />mei 2 centi ::)<br /><br />

To know the word order it helps to ask the question to which you already know the answer.<br /><br />"Quis equum legati curat?", "ANCILLA marci equum legati curat"<br /><br />"suntne multi episcopi in casa tua?" "SUNT (multi episcopi in mea casa) " <br /><br />Sometimes it gets to a point where the answer is obvious where a verb comes in. That 'sunt' basically means 'yes', or, as I like to think of it "There does be"<br /><br />ps everybody sorry about the monotony of my examples! Verborum copiam non habeo!

You guys should feel free to invent your own style. No two Latin speakers spoke alike... there's just far too much complexity and flexibility for that to occur. Certain word orders are common, but none of them are "proper". Put the words wherever you want, unless it gets to the point of confusion (and in that case we conveniently label it poetry )

Last edited by benissimus on Sun Sep 05, 2004 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=261;start=15#1533 date=1058495039]<br />qui = who, as a relative pronoun<br />illum = that<br />habet = has, owns<br />sed = but<br /><br />(It is) not Marcus who owns the horse but the legate.[/quote]<br /><br />It really helps when you break it down that way. And this just shows how much I need to learn to be able to communicate on a basic level. I need to learn more about the grammar, and then I need to learn more vocabulary.<br /><br />

Remember how we studied the three main parts of a language, Morphology, Syntax, and Lexicon? A basic rule is that the more you put into one, the less you need of the others. Latin is heavy on morphology, so it does not depend as heavily on syntax as most of our modern languages (though it certainly does adhere strongly to syntax in certain constructions).

In this sentence, quid is the direct object of the verb 'dat'. Usually, you can find the direct object by asking "what?" e.g. what does the maid servant give? Even though this is the translation of part of the sentence in this case, it it still valid: the direct object is 'quid'. Then, you can find the indirect object by asking: 'to whom'. To whom does the maid servant give something? To the horse -ergo: the horse is in the dative case.If you put the horse in the accusative, equum, the maid servant would be giving a horse (and you would have to leave the 'quid' out of the sentence)

look at number 4 :

cuius equum ancilla cūrat ?

cūrat takes an accusative, even though it is translated by care for. English uses a lot of phrasal verbs, where Latin would use a verb + direct object.

to be honest, i don't understand why "quid" is the direct object in the sentence... maybe it's explained later in the book, but til now it does not say anything about it, except for nouns / adjectives in cases

i still see equō in dative case because of my rough translation into english : to the horse; so to is indeed influencing in the meaning of the sentence, then i can't consider equus as in accusative case, but in dative case

I gather your problem lies in the use of cases, if not, skip this mail .

The verb is the main part of the sentence, without verb no full sentence. It tells you what's been done.

The subject (in Latin the nominative) is the 'acting' person or thing, who/what is doing what the verb says. For example:

The boy is standing: 'the boy' is subject, 'is standing' is the verb.

You can check which part of the sentence is the subject, by putting the verb in the plural when it is singular, or the other way around:

The boys are standing: the verb is now plural, and so is the subject.

You can also ask the question: who is doing the verb?: in this case: who is standing? The boy.

The direct object (in Latin the accusative) is the person or thing acted upon. For example:

The boy reads a book : 'the boy' is still the subject, 'reads' the verb, and 'a book' is the direct object.

You can ask the question: what is the subject doing?; in this case: what is the boy reading? A book.

A trick that is not fail safe in English: usually the direct object becomes the subject when you turn the sentence into the passive: the book is read by the boy. Now you can do the singular/plural trick again: the books are read by the boy(NB: in English, the indirect object can become the subject of the sentence too, in Latin, it can't)

Not every verb can take a direct object. In my earlier example, you cannot be standing something (OK, with a different meaning, there may be quite a lot what you can't stand ). Verbs that can take a direct object are called transitive verbs, verbs that cannot take a direct object are called intransitive.

The indirect object (in Latin the dative) is the thing or person affected by the verb, but not the direct object of it. In English, it is usually preceded by 'to' or 'for', but changing the word order will enable you to skip the preposition. Indirect objects are most often found with verbs meaning 'give'.

The boy gives a book to his friend . 'the boy' is subject, 'gives' is the verb, ' a book' is the direct object, and 'to his friend' is the indirect object.
The boy gives his friend a book . Same as above, but as you can see, the 'to' has gone.

In it's simple form, the indirect object is the person or thing who benefits (or suffers) from the thing that is done to the direct object.

I'm sure there are people who can explain all this a lot better than I can. Google on 'indirect direct object', and browse through the results.

to be honest, i don't understand why "quid" is the direct object in the sentence...maybe it's explained later in the book, but til now it does not say anything about it, except for nouns / adjectives in cases

The book does cover this in enough detail for this point in the language.

First, look at the section on the Dative Relation, § 43.

Here you are told that the relation is expressed by the preposition "to/towards/for". However...you are immediately told that it does not cover motion towards. You are given examples of such motion: "She went to town; he ran towards town; Columbus sailed for America." So keep in mind the idea that motion is not the dative case.

Now he describes the Indirect Object in § 44. The two examples given are:

1. The sailor announces the flight.
2. The sailor announces the flight to the farmers.

In the first sentence you can identify the subject object and verb. In the second sentence, they haven't changed but we've added an indirect object, "to the farmers".

Let's play a little substitution game here. The accusative case is in § 37 and tells us that it answers the question "What?" so everyplace we ws have the accusative case, we'll substitute the word WHAT.

1. The sailor announces WHAT.
2. The sailor announces WHAT to the farmers.

You can see how to turn the first sentence into a question:
1a. WHAT does the sailor announce?

If you use the table from § 33 you might think that the farmers answers the question WHOM...except for that preposition to. TO WHOM is what § 44 tells you the dative case covers.

2a. The sailor announces WHAT TO WHOM.

Now let's take the current sentence: quid ancilla equo legati dat?

First let's use our substitution, which in this case is really easy because we are given the WHAT.

WHAT does the maid give?

From our example above, we can turn this question back into a statement:
The maid gives WHAT.

Ingrid has mentioned to you that curat takes the accusative. This is mentioned in the text as well but you may have missed it. At the beginning of § 77 you are told to learn the special vocabulary. In that vocabulary you are given the verb curat and told its meaning is to care for and you are told that it takes the accusative case. That last part is the important part.

When you are given a word definition and told that it takes a particular case you are being directed to use that case over another according to the rules of the language. In this case, the verb carat, to care for, has a preposition built into it. so there is no preposition "for" to add when it is used in a sentence, like the one we have.

The made cares for WHOM?

Back to § 37 and we find the accusative case answers the question WHOM. So the definition of the verb and the sentence match up.

This leaves us with cuius, which you were given in the first special vocabulary as whose. So you end up with:

i'm trying my best to learn every vocabulary, personal ending and such; i just need to review more frequently, maybe a few things i've learned before, two or three days later i just forgot 'em, and that's such a shame !